


Buoyed

by robocryptid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Lazy Mornings, Morning Cuddles, Morning Sex, One Shot, but still to be safe, it's not angst so much as navel-gazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 02:25:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robocryptid/pseuds/robocryptid
Summary: She remembers things sometimes. More than she’s supposed to, she knows, and often in her sleep. There’s rarely sentiment attached, but snatches will come to her. It would surprise nobody to know she remembers Gérard and the faces of other people she knew before, all in her past life.It’s the other memories that intrigue her though, the ones that are hers and hers alone. She doesn’t dare tell, but she does her best to store them carefully in her mind, cherishing the taste of independence, the things the doctor cannot touch.





	Buoyed

**Author's Note:**

> Quick ficlet that is more character thoughts than plot.

She remembers things sometimes. More than she’s supposed to, she knows, and often in her sleep. There’s rarely sentiment attached, but snatches will come to her. It would surprise nobody to know she remembers Gérard and the faces of other people she knew before, all in her past life. 

It’s the other memories that intrigue her though, the ones that are hers and hers alone. She doesn’t dare tell, but she does her best to store them carefully in her mind, relishing the taste of independence, the things the doctor cannot touch:

_The sound of her first dance instructor’s cane tapping out a relentless rhythm on the hard floor. The swarming silhouettes of an audience rendered faceless by the glare of the stage lights._

_The smell of oil paints and the weight of the brush in her hand. The feel of it dragging across the canvas._

_The rocking of the ocean around her, her body buoyed by the water. The tackiness of her skin as the saltwater dries in the heat of a glaring Mediterranean sun._

It’s this memory that she wakes with, fooled perhaps by the sun shining brightly through the curtains, by the warmth of Sombra’s body beside her. Sombra, night owl that she is, remains fast asleep and curled tightly around her teddy bear.

She touches Sombra’s hair, just barely. Her touch is as light as she can make it as she gathers the sleep-mussed strands from Sombra’s face. Sombra is beautiful, and Widow thinks of painting again, eyes tracing the curve of Sombra’s brow and the slope of her nose, the gleam of light and the density of shadows in the shapes of her face. 

The sun shines in Sombra’s face and still she sleeps.

She wonders if it’s because Sombra feels comfortable here, against all possible reason. Past evidence suggests it is not safe, and Sombra is too keen on self-preservation to take needless risks. Yet Sombra is here.

She wonders if Sombra enjoys the beach; she’s never thought to ask. 

She wonders if she could share her memories. If Sombra would keep her secrets. If Sombra will stay past the next mission. If Sombra is an ally to her or only to Talon.

These questions are too much so soon after waking. Her mind is still too foggy to grasp at their depths. So she closes her eyes and she fits her chest against Sombra’s back, soaks up her warmth and remembers the ocean.

When Widow wakes again, Sombra is restless under her arm, twisting in her grasp. Their eyes meet, and Sombra’s mouth quirks up. It is easy to see the wheels turning behind those sharp eyes, which are perversely alert immediately upon waking.

There are questions that hover on the tip of Widow’s tongue, but she does not voice them. She knows her hands are cold — Sombra has remarked on it many times before — but Sombra kisses her fingertips as if that does not matter, mouth curling warm and soft against them.

They barely speak, but for this they do not need many words. Sombra’s mouth touches the hollow of her throat, and Widow sighs, remembering how her pulse might have fluttered long ago. She wonders if it is strange to have a lover whose body cannot respond in all the ways she thinks it ought to, but Sombra has never seemed put off. 

Then Widow stops wondering, because her heartbeat may be slow to respond as it should, but her mind and the rest of her body seem to get along well enough. Sombra’s mouth and fingers are as subtle and clever as her mind, Sombra’s skin smooth and warm under Widow’s cool hands, and it is easy to become lost in it all. It is easy to become lost in the warmth of Sombra’s body pressed against hers, and in the heat that finally, slowly builds inside her.

When it is over, she pulls Sombra close and thinks again about floating in the ocean, fondness swelling as it always does in such moments. She remembers before: she used to cry sometimes, overwhelmed by the surge of emotion that came with the release. She has not cried in many years, but she is still capable of the fondness.

She wonders if that is dangerous somehow. It seems likely that it is.

“What did you dream about?” Sombra asks, voice cutting cleanly through Widow’s thoughts. Widow blinks but turns to face her, and Sombra’s eyes are large and beautiful and perhaps even earnest.

“Always so curious,” she teases, but there’s a question in it too.

“You talked a little. Nothing I understood though.” Sombra looks away for a moment, and Widow wonders if she is nervous somehow. “I want to know what you dream about.” Widow still does not know how to respond, nor how to ask the questions raised by Sombra’s probing. There’s a tiny wrinkle forming between Sombra’s brows, the one she gets when she is focused on a puzzle to solve. She looks at Widow again, and her voice is barely a whisper. “Are you… not supposed to dream?”

Widow’s breath catches, and she knows that Sombra hears it. It is answer enough. “I doubt she could stop me from dreaming. But they were not just dreams.” Still she hesitates, but she has already risked this much. She remains focused, ready to measure Sombra’s reaction. “They were memories.”

Sombra understands immediately. Of course she does. Her hands are on Widow’s face; it seems they are meant to be reassuring. Widow does not think she’s ever heard Sombra as solemn as when she says, “I won’t tell. I wouldn’t— Nobody will know, I promise.”

The instincts trained into her say to remain suspicious of this. But the softer instincts, the ones brought about by her memories and the lazy morning sunlight and Sombra herself, tell her that she can trust this. She _wants_ to trust this. And so, she decides, she must. 

“I remembered painting,” Widow answers, more hushed than she means it to be. “And the ocean.” Sombra rewards her efforts with a smile, and Widow tells her about her first dance instructor.

She asks if Sombra enjoys the beach — she does — and if Sombra has ever painted — not on a traditional canvas, Sombra jokes. These are small things, but Sombra gives Widow no reason to doubt that her memories will be kept safe. Widow does not ask whether Sombra is her ally or only Talon’s, but now she thinks she does not have to.


End file.
